Healing Mr. Ashford

Chapter Thirteen: Chronic Deception

NATALIA GEORGETTE

The moment we arrived at the house, Ethan slipped back into his usual routine as if nothing had happened. He placed the bouquet of roses he had brought me on the kitchen counter, loosened his tie, and asked whether I wanted something to eat. I stood by the doorway for a while, watching him move around the house that had once felt like a place we were building together. Somehow, everything looked exactly the same. The furniture, the framed photographs, even the small vase on the dining table that I had bought months ago. Nothing had changed, and yet I felt like I was looking at a life that no longer belonged to me.

“You should rest,” he said as he walked toward the living room. “You must be exhausted.”

“I am.”

“You barely slept on the flight.”

I looked at him. “I'll be fine.”

He nodded as though that settled everything, then sat on the sofa and reached for his phone. A few seconds passed before he started talking about the wedding again. The venue still needed confirmation. His mother wanted to finalize the guest list. There were still things to discuss with the florist, the caterer, and the church.

I listened quietly, letting him talk.

The wedding, that word had once made my heart race. Now, it only made something inside me ache.

“How's Leila?” I asked.

His fingers stopped moving.

He slowly looked up at me. “What are you asking about her?”

I shrugged, forcing myself to sound casual. “Nothing. I'm just asking.”

“She’s fine, I guess.”

“You haven't talked to her?”

“Why would I?”

I held his gaze for a moment.

“Didn't she tell you?”

His eyebrows pulled together. “Tell me what?”

I looked away, pretending to think about how to phrase the question when, in reality, I already knew exactly what I wanted to ask. I had spent too many nights wondering how much Ethan knew, how much Leila had told him, and whether he had ever intended to tell me himself.

“Didn't she tell you that I know?”

His expression changed.

“Know what?”

I looked directly at him.

“That I know you're the father of her baby.”

The silence that followed felt heavier than I expected.

Ethan stared at me as though he were trying to decide whether I was bluffing. I watched the questions move across his face, one after another.

When did I find out? Who told me? How much did I know?

But he didn't ask any of those things and instead, his expression hardened.

“So that's why you left?”

I frowned.

“What?”

“You left without telling me.” His voice became sharper. “You disappeared to Portugal, Natalia. For an entire week, I couldn't even contact you. You wouldn't answer my calls, and now I find out that you already knew about this?”

I stared at him, barely believing what I was hearing.

He was doing it!

He was actually turning this around on me.

“Because you knew?” he continued. “Is that why you left?”

“Ethan...” He cut me off,

“You didn't even give me a chance to explain!” His voice rose with irritation and I almost laughed, but there was nothing funny about it.

“A chance to explain what?”

He stood from the sofa.

“That you believed her over me.” My chest tightened. There it was the guilt, the accusation, the attempt to make me defend myself before he ever had to defend what he had done.

“You believed Leila instead of me?” he asked again, his voice quieter now, almost wounded. “After everything we've been through?”

I stared at him, and for a moment, I couldn't even find the words, not because I didn't have anything to say, but because I had too much.

I thought about the airport. The roses in his hands. The way he had smiled when he saw me. The way he had asked if I was tired. The way he had acted as though the only thing waiting for us was a wedding we simply needed to finish planning.

The audacity of it almost took my breath away.

“You know what?” I whispered.

He looked at me.

I shook my head slowly.

“Oh, please. Don't try to play that card with me.”

His expression shifted.

“I know what you're doing.”

“Natalia, I'm just asking...”

“No. You're not.”

I stepped closer, my voice trembling despite how hard I tried to keep it steady.

“You're trying to make me feel guilty because I left. You're making it about the fact that I couldn't contact you, about whether I believed Leila, about whether I trusted you.”

I swallowed, feeling the familiar ache in my chest.

“But that's not what we're talking about.”

Ethan said nothing.

“We're talking about you.”

My eyes burned, but I refused to look away.

“I know she's pregnant. I know you're the father. And I know, you know that I know.” His face went still, and I saw it then that tiny moment when he realized I wasn't asking questions anymore. I already had the answers.

“The audacity to stand there and act like everything is normal,” I continued, my voice growing heavier with every word. “You waited for me at the airport. You brought me flowers. You asked me to rest. You came home with me and started talking about wedding preparations as if the only problem in our lives was that I had been gone for a week.”

I let out a small, bitter laugh.

“Wow.”

He stared at me.

“Just wow, Ethan.”

“Natalia...” I cut him off this time,

“Did you suddenly get amnesia?”

He went silent.

“Or are you just trying to fool me?”

My voice cracked, and this time I didn't care.

“I know you already know that I know you're the father.”

I took a shaky breath.

“So for once, Ethan, just be honest with me.”

The room fell silent again.

I looked at the man I had once believed I would spend the rest of my life with, and the sadness that settled inside me was somehow worse than the anger.

“Please,” I whispered. “For once, be f*cking honest with me.”

I wiped the corner of my eye before the tear could fall.

“And be f*cking honest with yourself, too!” I pointed at him angrily after I said that, my voice raised.

Ethan didn't answer. He just stood there, staring at me. And for the first time since I had come home, I knew he understood that I wasn't asking him whether the baby was his anymore. I was waiting to see if he was finally capable of admitting it.

Somehow, that hurt more than finding out the truth in the first place. Because his first instinct hadn't been to tell me the truth. It had been to make me feel guilty for leaving. His silence hurt more than any confession could have. I looked at him for another second before wiping the tears from my cheeks, trying to steady myself despite how badly my hands were trembling.

“Don't worry.”

My voice became quieter.

“I won't ask you again.”

Something shifted in his expression. Maybe it was the way I stopped looking at him like I was still waiting for him to choose me, or the way my voice had gone quiet because I no longer had the strength to ask the same questions over and over again.

I saw it in the way his eyes changed. In the brief flash of panic, he tried to hide before his face settled again. For the first time, the carefully controlled expression he had worn throughout our entire conversation finally cracked, and beneath it was something raw, something that looked almost like fear. And somehow, seeing it only made my chest ache more, because it came too late.

“Natalia…”

I looked at him.

“I'm giving you one last chance.”

My heart was breaking as I said it.

“Tell me the truth.” He opened his mouth, and for a second, I thought he was finally going to say it.

I was ready to hear it, but before a single word could leave his lips, his phone rang. The sound cut through the silence between us, sharp and almost cruel in its timing. Ethan glanced at the screen, and I watched the color slowly drain from his face. Something in his expression changed so quickly that my stomach tightened before I even knew why.

I followed his gaze toward the phone in his hand, my heart already beginning to sink as if some part of me had recognized the name before my eyes did.

Leila,